I think the delays come from a variety of things…Dan isn’t an assembly-line worker who just puts together heaters all day or something. I’m pretty sure he’s still designing, building, finishing and painting everything on everything that comes out of the shop (except the cases which his partner is involved in).
As someone who is also driven to do a lot of different things, I couldn’t stand to sand hour after hour for days to get a batch done. Even if I could manage it physically without messing myself up, it would quickly drain my will to continue with the project.
I think the variety of things he does is probably a key reason these are still available at all, and some of those tasks go toward future batches.
Also, while these don’t seem cheap to us as buyers, I think he spends a lot of time on them that is not reflected in the price. Because they take so much time I think he’s had to sell more into the future to keep things going. You can only stretch the profits from one batch so far…
Imagine how much more time it takes to build by hand than something like a Mighty (which costs almost as much) takes to make in a factory.
I wish I had the money to pay him to finish up what’s already in the pipeline and take some time off to recharge, but as it stands I suspect he has to get started on future batches and still do his best for all of us to make ends meet.
Maybe we would prefer if he doubled the prices and got smaller batches done fast, but I suspect a lot of people would balk at that idea…
Nothing I’ve seen from him has been half-assed, and with the attention to detail he has that takes time. Despite being far more affected by delays than most of you on my Nomad, I still feel like it’s been well worth the wait and I feel like I underpaid for it given the amount of time he’s spent on it and talking to me about it.
For anyone who’s sold other things to fund one of these though, I completely get the frustration. I waited a long time without a decent convection portable because I didn’t want to waste money on things I didn’t really love.
If someone really needs theirs faster and isn’t just impatient to get their 10th or 50th vaporizer, I suspect Dan would help you out if he could. It’s at least worth checking in if you’re in that situation.
I can’t speak for him or what he can do to accommodate people in those situations, but I can tell you he’s a good guy doing his best for every one of us and I hope that he can find a good way to tighten up the timelines a bit.
If it doesn’t eat too much time, maybe a full batch or two of $600-800 or so Toads like the recent vintage tape one would help get things back on track? I suspect it took a lot of time though, so that may not save time as much as shift it to painting…
I do hope he finds a way to estimate timelines better that works for him and doesn’t price most of us out, but if I had the money available I’d be happy to pay those prices for a really nice piece, and I trust him enough to wait as long as necessary to make it all work.
so as long as it doesn't come at the expense of painting the next, next batch I'll be cool.
